


The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

by em2mb



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 02:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9414044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/em2mb/pseuds/em2mb
Summary: Nick realizes too late the target isn’t President Carter, but Director Carter. If he shouts, he’ll start a panic, and she might still get shot. But he’s not sure how else to warn her from ten feet away.Until he catches Chief Sousa’s eye.Trouble follows Peggy and Daniel to the inaugural ball.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Paeonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paeonia/gifts).



> Based on the too-accurate tags on peonymoss' [excellent Tumblr post](https://peonymoss.tumblr.com/post/155992977908/food-for-fic-peggy-at-an-inaugural-ball-mcu) about Peggy attending an inaugural ball.

**Inauguration of President Jimmy Carter**

_January 20, 1977_

“Dan- _iel,”_ Peggy calls from the en suite, “you haven’t seen my – oh, _damn.”_

Her swear breaks his concentration, clumsy fingers fumbling his silk bowtie. Daniel frowns at his reflection. “What is it, Peg?”

His wife sighs heavily. “It seems I’ve dropped an earring down the sink.”

Daniel stops trying to push the pinched end of his bowtie through a too-small loop. “Not one of the pearl ones I got you for Christmas?”

“Yes, Daniel, one of the pearl ones you got me for Christmas. Now will you please come help?”

He’s already reaching for his cane. “Yes, dear,” he says dutifully. Peggy, impatient as always, drums her fingers on the countertop, red nails tap-tap-tapping as he inspects the drain. Daniel fishes the little screwdriver he carries for quick adjustments to his prosthesis from his pocket and uses it to pop the stopper. Two inches down, tangled in a clump of hair, is her lost earring. “You know,” he teases as he fishes it out, “this almost makes me feel bad about all the times I’ve given you grief for clogging our shower.”

Peggy snatches the earring from him. “You should feel bad,” she scolds, nose wrinkling as she rinses it under the tap. She slides it through her left earlobe. “Why, if not for my curls, you’d be running out to buy me new earrings. I only brought the one pair.”

“Dunno, Peg,” he says as she sweeps her hair to one side. “Seeing as they match the necklace – ” deftly, he works the clasp on the string of pearls “ – you might’ve been out of luck.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Daniel,” she says, shaking her shoulders so her gown falls just so. It’s been thirty years, and she still takes his breath away. “You would’ve had to buy me a necklace, too.”

He chuckles softly. “You’re beautiful, Peg,” he says, stealing a kiss.

“And you’re lucky you’re not trying to find a jeweler open in the District on Inauguration Day. Tie your tie, we’re going to be late.”

*

“Smile, Nick,” the director tells him, snagging a flute of champagne from a passing waiter. She downs it in one gulp, her lips leaving a crimson smudge on the rim. Back onto the tray it goes.

Nick watches as she disappears into the crowd. “I’ll smile when I can change out of this penguin suit,” he grumbles. Into his wristwatch, the latest S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue Stark Tech, he mutters, “Her Majesty is on the move.”

The agent working balcony surveillance groans in Nick’s left ear. “Not again. Please tell me you have eyes on the Duke of Edinburgh,” he begs.

Quickly, Nick’s eyes scan the room for the director’s husband. “Prince Philip is at the bar,” Nick says in a low tone, pretending to scratch an itch by his nose. He hears Chief Sousa ordering a whisky, neat.

“Copy that, Agent Fury.”

Director Carter’s eyebrow shoots up when her assistant finally manages to catch up to her, ten minutes later. “QE2, Nick, really?” she asks, sipping from her Scotch. “I once fired an assistant who thought it’d be clever to make my code name ‘Pussy Galore.’ Of course, it would’ve helped if he hadn’t giggled every time he said it over comms.”

When Nick gets home, he’s going to pour himself a stiff drink. “I’ll take that under advisement, M,” he says out of the corner of his mouth, resting both elbows on the cocktail table behind her.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go rescue Daniel from the ambassador to Sweden. Darling!” she calls, waving across the room to him.

Everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. still calls the director’s husband “Chief Sousa,” though it’s been years since he had that title. In the thirteen months he’s been her assistant, Nick hasn’t worked out if that’s out of respect for her or him. His breath fogs up his watch face. “The queen is leading the prince consort onto the dance floor.”

No answer.

Irritably, Nick repeats, “I _said,_ the queen is leading the prince consort onto the dance floor. Do you – ”

That’s when he sees the glint of steel. Up on the balcony where his fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agent should be stands a man he’s never seen before, with chin-length hair and a metal hand. Nick almost snorts. A damned metal hand. Now he really has seen it all. He taps into channel two, which the Secret Service is using. “Escort Deacon to the nearest exit,” he says lazily. “You’ve got an uninvited guest on the mezzanine.”

“Who is this?” comes the startled reply. “Did anyone else hear – ”

But Nick’s already switched back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. channel. “Almost teatime,” he says.

“I’ll bring the car around, Agent Fury.”

Nick shoves his way onto the dance floor. “Excuse me, pardon me.” He’s forty feet from Director Carter. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see that the Secret Service is shuffling the president off. Thirty. Twenty. He glances up at the balcony, expecting the would-be assassin to be packing up his gun.

Except he isn’t. The man with the metal arm is taking aim.

Nick realizes too late the target isn’t President Carter, but Director Carter. If he shouts, he’ll start a panic, and she might still get shot. But he’s not sure how else to warn her from ten feet away.

Until he catches Chief Sousa’s eye.

 _“Sniper,”_ Nick mouths.

The chief wastes no time rotating his wife out of harm’s way.

Which, unfortunately, puts him directly in the line of fire. Nick watches Chief Sousa’s body jerk like a ragdoll as the bullet meant for his wife pierces his back.

Turns out, it’s out of respect for him.

*

It happens so fast.

One minute they’re swaying in time to the music, Daniel leaning in close to whisper “I love you” in her ear. Then he’s pitching forward, collapsing to the ground.

“Daniel,” Peggy says frantically, sinking to her knees. _“Daniel.”_ Someone helps her roll him onto his back. A horrible red stain is blossoming on his white shirt. Several people gasp. She pitifully tries to cover the wound with her hands.

_“Gunman!”_

It’s pandemonium, a crescendo of breaking glass as partygoers drop their champagne flutes in their rush to the nearest exit. A man treads on Peggy’s ankle. A woman trips over Daniel’s knee. The corners of Peggy’s vision blur. Where’s S.H.I.E.L.D.? Where are her agents? An hour ago, evading Nick and the others had seemed like harmless fun, a low-stakes way to liven up a dull evening.

A game her sensible husband had warned her not to play. “No,” Peggy chokes, and she shakes her head vehemently. “This isn’t how you go.”

Then Nick’s hauling her off the body – _no,_ Peggy tells herself, _Daniel_ – and shouting, “Is there a doctor in the house? I _said,_ is – ”

A man with a receding hairline steps forward. “I’m a doctor,” he says, and he crouches down to take Daniel’s pulse. Peggy realizes with a start he’s not just any doctor, but Navy Rear Admiral William Lukash. She notices, too, that when Nick dragged her back, he must’ve flipped Daniel’s jacket open because his CIA badge is clearly visible now.

“Director Carter, we have to go,” Nick says urgently, tugging on her arm. “A car is waiting.”

But Peggy doesn’t budge. “I’m staying with my husband,” she says fiercely, blinking back tears as Dr. Lukash begins chest compressions. _Don’t you die on me, Daniel. Don’t you dare._

She’s certainly not expecting Nick to lift her bodily. “We’re going,” he says firmly, steering Peggy toward the nearest exit. “A team of agents has already been dispatched to Walter Reed. We can go straight there. But we can’t stay here.”

Peggy tries stomping on Nick’s foot, but he’s been her assistant long enough to know her tricks. “Stand down, Agent,” she commands. “I’m ordering you to stand down.”

“No can do, Director Carter,” Nick says grimly, even though onlookers are starting to gape at the spectacle of a tuxedoed young black man wrestling a middle-aged white woman in pearls and a blood-splattered evening gown into the back of a town car. “Not after an attempt on your life.”

That’s when Peggy realizes the bullet was meant for her, and she stops struggling.

*

The woman standing behind President Carter in the photo is immediately recognizable. “Not that one,” Michael says, plucking it from the stack.

Indignant, the photographer who’d shot the inauguration snatches it back. “Why not? It’s a great photo!”

It’s not like Michael can tell his colleague _because my mother, who happens to be the director of a covert intelligence agency most Americans don’t know about, is in the background,_ so he finds a better photo. “Sure it is. Not as good as this one, though.”

“Yeah,” the photographer says slowly. “Yeah, you’re right.” He thumps his fist on Michael’s desk, rattling the old Selectric typewriter. “Thanks, Sousa.” And he dashes off to confer with his editor, which reminds Michael. He’s on deadline. According to the clock on the far wall, he has another ten minutes to write before someone starts to yell.

Or not. _“Sousa,”_ the Metro editor barks.

Michael holds up a hand, fingers splayed. “Five minutes,” he promises.

“There’s been a shooting at the Smithsonian.”

Michael frowns. “Isn’t that where President Carter planned to be? Who’s there? Rosenfeld?”

“No, Lynton. He just called. He says the Secret Service got the president out, but a CIA agent was shot. Can you start making calls?”

“Of course,” says Michael, reaching automatically for his phone before he’s fully processed his boss’ words. “Wait, did you say CIA agent?”

“Yeah, Lynton says he saw the badge. Apparently the president’s personal physician stayed to – _hey, where do you think you’re going?”_

*

Peggy sits in a hard plastic chair at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and replays the moment Daniel got shot over and over, until she has no doubt he saw the sniper on the balcony and put her safety ahead of his. Tears well in Peggy’s eyes. “Dammit, Daniel,” she mutters, praying to a God she doesn’t believe in that he’ll somehow pull through.

“I’m her son!”

Peggy lifts her chin. “Michael?” she croaks. She hears the scuff of shoes on linoleum, a tussle in the hallway.

“There’s a picture of me on her desk, for Christ’s sake,” Michael insists. The waiting room doors swing open. “Mom,” he says anxiously before pulling her into a very tight hug.

“Oh, Michael,” she breathes.

He holds her at arm’s length for a moment. “What happened? How’s Dad?” The splatters of his father’s blood all over her dress must unnerve him because he shrugs out of his sport coat and drapes it over her shoulders. Peggy recognizes it almost immediately as having once belonged to Daniel. “You weren’t hurt, were you?”

Peggy shakes her head. “They won’t tell me anything,” she says desperately. “Your father – ”

Michael squeezes her hand. “I’ll figure out who can give us an update on Dad,” he promises. “A doctor, someone will know something.”

 _Oh, Daniel. That bullet was meant for me._ “Surgery,” she manages.

“Dad’s in surgery?” Peggy nods mechanically. She’s not expecting her son to breathe a sigh of relief. “Why didn’t you say so? I thought – never mind what I thought. Have you called Colleen?” Peggy doesn’t say anything. “You know what? Don’t worry about it. I’ll call Colleen.”

 _Don’t go,_ Peggy wants to beg her son, but her mouth won’t form the words.

Michael kisses his mother’s wet cheek. “I’ll be right back,” he promises.

_Don’t leave me here alone._

*

Jack stands over bloodstained carpet, still in his tuxedo. He’d been down the street at another inaugural ball when a subordinate reported shots fired at the Smithsonian. Now he’s got DOD, CIA, Secret Service and S.H.I.E.L.D. milling about, contaminating his crime scene. He almost loses it when he sees a uniformed police officer duck under the yellow caution tape. “OK, who invited Metro PD?”

Someone taps Jack on the shoulder. “Sir,” says one of the crime scene technicians. “I think we’ve found the bullet.”

“Give me that.” Jack snatches the evidence bag from her. He holds it up to the light and squints at the round that tore through Sousa’s chest cavity and damn near ended his life.

Nervously, the technician continues, “It’ll have to go to the lab, of course, but it certainly looks like the others. Soviet – ”

“ – slug, no rifling,” Jack finishes, glancing up at the balcony. So the Winter Soldier strikes again.

*

Daniel wakes up in a bed that isn’t his. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to swallow. There’s a heavy weight on his leg. “Peggy,” he rasps, stroking her hair.

His wife startles awake. “Daniel,” she says, adorably sleep-addled and confused. Then she must remember why they’re there because she admonishes, “You gave me a terrible fright. Please do not do that again.”

His throat’s rubbed raw – he must’ve been on a ventilator – but he manages to wheeze, “What, get shot? Yes, Director.”

Peggy sighs. “You took a bullet for me.”

“Did not,” Daniel lies. His eyelids feel heavy. He closes them. “Love you, Peg.”


End file.
